The Black Capstone - A Drop In/Drop Out UVG Campaign

    The Stone wants to return home.  It wants to take its rightful place in those black halls, from where it was once torn.  It wills movement, ever Westwards.  It is not unreasonable, if something can be gained by taking a step back that is fine, as long as it is followed by two steps forwards.

The Stone wills you to move it.  Your first mistake was when you touched it.  Your fate became bound to it’s will.  You became it’s thrall.

The Stone has many servants.  They linger inside it’s impossible black halls, waiting for their turn to carry it westwards.

The purpose of the black capstone is to allow for players to easily join, quit the game, or miss sessions in my Ultraviolet Grasslands campgian.  Essentially, the stone is the in-universe excuse we will use when a player isn’t present or somebody new joins.  It also acts as an overall goal for the campaign, a reason why everybody wants to reach the black city.  I don’t intend to mechanically enforce this, it’s more of a narrative thread.

The stone is able to store and recall people in its thrall.  When you are not playing, your character has been recalled into the stone.  When you are playing, the stone has decided to use your character.

If a new player joins we can either have them play somebody who has been in the stone for a while, or have them play somebody who accidentally touched the stone.

In terms of gameplay, the stone takes up 1 sack of cargo and can not be abandoned. In my game, the stone gives each player 150xp when they reach a new major location substantially farther west than any previous one.

The stone does not always work, people who touch it get a save and it only can attempt to enthrall once per day.  You have never seen the stone take damage, but you can not bring yourself to test it.  When you stare into it, it gives off a sense of depth, as though there is more there than just a stone.

At some point, characters become too powerful for the capstone to become too powerful for the capstone to hold and are able to break from it’s grasp.  At this point, they can continue with the party willingly (they will still be able to enter the stone) or retire, allowing their player to make a new level 1 character. In my GLOG game, this happens when they reach level 5.